Time tracking

Hours are the raw material of a billable project. TribeNest gives you two ways to capture them and one way to turn them into money.

Go to Work then Time.

The timer

The timer sits at the top of the Time page.

1. Pick a Project. Only active projects are listed.
2. Optionally pick a Task on that project.
3. Type what you are doing in Description.
4. Click Start timer.

The page then shows a running clock, the project it is counting against and your description. Click Stop timer and the entry is saved with the elapsed time.

Logging time by hand

Below the timer, Log time manually covers everything the timer missed: the call you took away from your desk, yesterday's afternoon, the hour you forgot to start.

1. Pick a Project, and a Task if the hours belong to one.
2. Set the Date.
3. Type a Duration.
4. Add a Description.
5. Leave Billable on if the client is paying for these hours, or turn it off.
6. Click Add entry.

Duration accepts the shapes you would naturally type: 1:30, 90m, 1h 30m. If it cannot read what you typed it says so rather than guessing.

Your entries

Under the two forms is a table of everything you have logged: date, project, task, description, duration, whether it was billable, the rate that applied, and whether it has been invoiced.

Click the pencil on a row to change its duration, description or billable flag. The bin deletes it.

Which rate applies

An hour is priced from the most specific rate it can find. A rate set on the task wins, then the rate that member carries on the project, then the project's default rate. Set the ones you need and leave the rest empty.

Timesheets

If you work with other people, hours usually need a second pair of eyes before they are billed. Click Timesheets in the top right of the Time page.

Submitting a week

1. Click Submit week.
2. Set Week starting, which is the Monday of the week you are submitting.
3. Add a Note if there is anything the approver should know.
4. Click Submit.

Your timesheet appears in the list as Submitted, with the total hours it covers.

Approving

Anyone with permission to approve time sees every member's timesheets rather than only their own, with Approve and Reject buttons on each submitted row. Both take an optional note, which is worth using on a rejection so the person knows what to fix.

A timesheet ends up in one of four states: Draft, Submitted, Approved or Rejected. Approving locks the entries inside it.

Turning time into an invoice

This is the point of tracking hours. On a client project, open the project, go to the Money tab and click New invoice. The same button also sits under Settings as New invoice from unbilled time.

The dialog asks how you want it built:

• Group line items by decides what a line on the invoice represents. Task gives one line per task, Member gives one line per person, and Flat rolls everything into a single line.
• From and To limit which dates are included. Leave both empty to bill everything unbilled.
• Due date and Tax rate % set the invoice terms.
• Notes appear on the invoice itself.

Click Create draft invoice. Only unbilled, billable time on this project goes in. Nothing is sent yet: you get a draft, and the dialog offers Open invoice to go and review it.

From there it is an ordinary invoice. Review the lines, adjust anything, and send it from Finance. Once it exists, the time it covers is marked invoiced and locks.